No
by Sally Mn
Summary: When Lester says it, he means it...


**No**

Kindly don't look at me like that," Lester said, with the long-suffering sigh that he had perfected in this job. "There is nothing that anyone can possibly say that will make me agree. "

He very carefully did not look away from the paperwork that, like it or not, had to be done, and went on calmly. "I have already agreed to far too much, whether out of sheer goodness of heart, or because it was all too clear that no work was going to be done around here until your situation was settled. And no, I do not wish to enter on a discussion with yet another of my subordinates on the matter. I am _not_, no matter what certain grief-addled minds around here think, the nearest you have to a friend any more. Be grateful that you have a roof over your heads and three - or is it five? - meals a day, it's rather more than I imagine your true friend can expect.

"Wherever - and whenever - _he_ is, of course."

He sighed again, and wrote on for a while, steadfastly ignoring the round dark eyes fixed on him.

"You might consider my position, as well," he said almost conversationally as he signed the first sheaf of forms. "To lose one employee may be regarded as a misfortune... one that, I agree, I should be more accustomed to than..." His pen slowed, his voice faltered. "than I seem to be. And you do realise that, if _that_ lowering admission became public, I would have to salvage my reputation by feeding you to the nearest dinosaur.

"But to lose three at once..." He stopped, and closed his eyes. "And those two young fools - invaluable fools, Miss Maitland and young Temple - among them. That could be called criminally careless, true?"

He resumed writing, frowning a little at the restless shuffling noise from his audience of two. "Don't concern yourself, however - in what must be my nine hundredth fit of insanity since I started this job, I have ordered that we keep searching where - and, more importantly _when_ - any chance at all appears. I really must be getting soft..."

He dropped the pen, and ran a hand through his impeccably styled hair.

"I really must be getting soft," he repeated very softly.

Two small bodies bumped against his leg, and he looked down into small, decidedly plain - no, if he was honest, quite ugly - faces.

"However, soft or not, I have not totally lost my mind. Half my staff keep saying how touching it is that you prehistoric pets seem to miss the boy as much as any of us - as much as any of _them_, I should say - and the rest keep mentioning the benefits of keeping the pair of you in a place you are accustomed to. Be that as it may, and much as I would do almost anything to stem the depression flooding the whole building... there is no way I will take you on as flatmates again."

One of the little creatures - he couldn't recall what they were called, he needed Connor for that - chirruped at him.

"And let me guess, either he never taught you the word no or you really are too primitive to grasp it. Not that being a supposedly advanced species ever helped Temple - or the rest - to grasp it. If they had..."

Maybe they wouldn't be missing, he thought but did not say. Or maybe it wouldn't have made an iota of difference.

Maybe he would never know.

It was only when a tiny hairless head butted against his hand that he realised he was petting it; he stared at his hand in bewilderment for a minute, then drew back, turning again to the mess of papers that sought in dry, clear, totally professional language to explain why three of his people, of his team, were lost, a long, long... eons-long way from home.

And truth to tell, Lester was mildly surprised at how much it hurt.

"Be grateful for small mercies," he said again to the little prehistoric reptiles. "Like Miss Maitland's little pet, and my friend the mammoth, and... yes well, a disconcerting number of our very own undead, you'll be looked after here until we find Temple and he can take you back. You are _not_ coming back to my flat unless he is there to..." He stopped. "I was about to say vouch for your behaviour, but he could hardly do that for his own. Let's say, unless he is there to at least apologise for it."

He turned away, and signed the last papers consigning Quinn, Abby and Connor to the virtual bureaucratic anomaly of 'missing, not yet presumed dead'. Standing, he stared down at the little faces, wondering yet again how he had been landed with reptile-sitting... and refusing yet again to think he could see worry, fear, even misery in those reptile eyes.

He reached across his desk to the battered, worse-for-wear trilby that he had left in his intray two days ago. The side of him that really, _really_ must be getting soft had found it in one of the labs, and the same side decided now that, if the animals needed something to lie on, to help them settle...

Maybe this would do it.

He walked to the door, relieved that they followed but hoping against hope that none of his staff would see him herding them through the building with Connor's old hat in his hand. "Come on, we have your nice warm cage waiting for you. You'll get used to living here until they comes back.

"And they _will,_" he said to himself, that soft side needing to hear it just once, "they will be back."

**-the end-**


End file.
